All of the material in this patent application is subject to copyright protection under the copyright laws of the United States and of other countries. As of the first effective filing date of the present application, this material is protected as unpublished material. However, permission to copy this material is hereby granted to the extent that the copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent documentation or patent disclosure, as it appears in the United States Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever.
Not Applicable
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to field of Internet Search Engines, Web browsers, and resource gathering and has special application in situations where these functions are further integrated with post-processing functions applied to the results of searches performed using theses software tools.
2. Description of the Related Art
The invention is related in the general area of Internet Search engine technology. Conventional Internet search engines permit users to search for a wide variety of information on the WWW. There are also domain-specific search engines (such as that exemplified by jCentral, http://www.ibm.com/developer/java) that provide users a more focused search within the desired domain.
Typically a successful search produces a search result page with result items (each usually contain a URL), an abstract, and some additional information about the resource found. A user can use a pointing device (e.g., mouse) to select a result item and request a download of the document. This is typically a manual process, with no existing system providing a predefined method of associating a post-processing application with the search results provided by the Internet search engine.
The prior art with few exceptions has no system or method available to associate tools and/or applications with the results of Internet search results.
The prior art includes web-based systems that provide a static assignment of web tools and/or services mapped to search results. As an example, jCentral (http://www.ibm.com/developer/java) offers a class visualizer for Java source code or for Java applets. The present invention, however, goes beyond this concept by letting the user integrate their own tools and/or services and thus personalize the post-processing options.
However, it should be noted that a variety of static and/or contextual application/data associations are known in the art. Specifically, the Microsoft(copyright) Windows(trademark) operating environment permits association of a file xe2x80x9ctypexe2x80x9d as determined by a filename extension to be associated with a given handling application. The structure of this application association is illustrated in FIG. 1, with the modal dialog boxes implementing this functionality illustrated in FIG. 2 and FIG. 3.
Referencing FIG. 1, an exemplary association of a Tagged Image File Format (TIFF) file is illustrated to show the techniques used by the prior art. In this configuration the tool and/or service association begins by using registration dialog(s) (0101) (detailed in FIG. 2 and FIG. 3) that associate an application such as the KODAK(copyright) image previewer KODAKPRV.exe with the xe2x80x9ctifxe2x80x9d file extension (0102). This association is typically stored in a Windows(trademark) Registry (0103).
As an example of how this functionality is executed, the filename.xe2x80x9cABC.tifxe2x80x9d (a Tagged Image Format File having a xe2x80x9ctifxe2x80x9d extension) may be selected within an application such as the FILE MANAGER (0105) and associated with a specific application such as the KODAKPRV.EXE image previewer using the modal dialog box illustrated in FIG. 2. The application action and/or activation associated with triggering (generally in the form of double-licking a Microsoft(copyright) Windows(trademark) file icon) the file is defined in a modal dialog box as typified in FIG. 3. Referencing FIG. 1, it can be seen that the KODAKPRV.exe application (0104) is activated by reference to the Windows(trademark) Registry (0103), the tool/service executed (0106), and the designated file is OPENed for access by the associated application (0107) by using the filename xe2x80x9cABC.tifxe2x80x9d as a parameter to the tool/service application.
As with other methods of associating filename extensions to application activations, the prior art requires that for each application file the filename extension be properly keyed to permit proper association of the control application for that file type. This is a significant problem in processing data generated by a wide variety of search engines, as this information is generally not tagged with appropriate filename extension information.
Referencing FIG. 4, the prior art with respect to search engines has traditionally not provided a method to permit the user to dynamic associate post-processing tools with the search results obtained from a web browser. The scope of the post-processing activity has in general been limited to the use of hyperlinks (0401) or some form of file extension based application activation methodology.
Accordingly, the objects of the present invention are (among others) to circumvent the deficiencies in the prior art and affect one or more of the following objectives:
(1) Provide a system and method to permit automatic activation of user-defined applications in response to the Internet search request results; (2) Permit users to allow a wide variety of service applications and tools to be associated with the results of Internet searches.
While these objectives should not be understood to limit the teachings of the present invention, in general these objectives are achieved by the disclosed invention that is discussed in the following sections.
The invention is related in the general area of Internet Search engine technology. The present invention goes on step further that the prior art and provides the user the possibility to permit the search result items to be automatically used as input for post processing based on a personalized user profile that determines the type of processing tool and/or service and how it is to be applied to the search result item.
Referencing FIG. 5, the present invention permits the user to register personal tools and/or services for use in post-processing search results (0501). The example search results page illustrated in FIG. 5 is based on the jCentral Java search engine, but the concept may be applied to any variety of search engines or the like. In illustrated example the tool could be a Java compiler residing on the user""s personal computer (client side). The registration process contains information about the user, the name of the tool, the type of data the tool and/or service can handle as an input for processing, and how to access and use the tool (parameter).
Once registered, the user can take advantage of the present invention. The essentials of the invention are as follows. When the user performs a search query for Java source code, the search engine creates a result set. The present invention then determines the user and verifies whether there are registered tools and/or services for this user that can properly process the type of result item (e.g., Java source code). In this example the user registered a Java compiler. Using this context the present invention creates some HTML markup in the result page for the matching type (Java source code) that when activated by the user invokes the user""s tool.
To illustrate the teachings of the present invention, a concrete example based on the jCentral search engine (http://www.ibm.com/developer/java) will now be provided. jCentral lets users search for Java resources using Java specific search features. With the present invention, a user would typically first register a tool and/or service. In this example, the user wants to register a Java compiler. The present invention then provides a registration form. The user then would typically apply for a username and a password for data protection purposes. At this point the following information is provided for the application tool:
The information is stored on the server side in a database and associated with the user""s profile.
Once registered, the user is able to perform a search. In this example the user is searching for Java source code, which implements a heap sort algorithm. He/She fills out the jCentral search form and issue a query to the jCentral search engine. Note that the present invention could use a xe2x80x9cCookiexe2x80x9d mechanism to store the tool information also on the client machine and retrieve the data as part of the search request. This is just another way of implementing the user profile.
The present invention receives the search request and queries the database for the user profile (or extract the cookie data from the search request). It then forwards the search request to the actual search engine. Before sending back the result page it inserts the HTML markup for the user defined tool and/or service. As a result the search results contain a choice selection GUI where the user can activate a personalized tool and/or service. FIG. 5 illustrates an exemplary jCentral result page that was generated from the present invention. Note that the xe2x80x9cJava compilerxe2x80x9d choice box was generated from the present invention based on the registered user profile of the user.
Overall the present invention can in some exemplary embodiments provide one or more of the following advantages over the prior art:
(1) By offering the user the possibility to link personalized tools and/or services with the search results of a search query, the user leverages convenience and a variety of other general benefits. Instead of downloading a requested document, saving it to a local hard drive, downloading and setting up a type specific software application, and then finally starting the application and provide the saved document as an input, the user registers a personalized application tool just once.
After the registration the present invention adds the corresponding HTML markup to each search result item in the result set. This markup is interpreted by the user""s web browser when activated by the user and invokes the user""s tool and/or service with the correct syntax and the specific search result item as an input for further processing. This post-processing is fully automatic on the client side by the user""s tool and/or service.
(2) Instead of using tools and/or services provided from a service provider, such as an Internet search engine, the user is able to integrate personalized tools and/or services, and customize these as desired. The present invention is based on user profiles that provide a very flexible and customizable way to manipulate and process the search results.
The present invention has wide application in the application of web-based services, and since these applications will become more dominant in the future, the present invention may provide for additional benefits other than described above. One skilled in the art will realize that these advantages may be present in some embodiments and not in others, as well as noting that other advantages may exist in the present invention that are not specifically listed above.